Alone IV: Rivers Cuomo’s Unreleased and Unrealized Album

In a 2017 interview with Dazed, Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo referred to the release of his Alone series of demo compilation albums, then 3 entries deep, as “kind of embarrassing." Despite this, several demos released through riverscuomo.com since 2020 have appearances of “Alone IV” tags in their file metadata, revealing that Cuomo considered a fourth installment in the series at some point between the release of Alone III in 2011 and the massive demo dump on his website in 2020. 

In this article, I identify each demo with an “Alone IV” tag as well as some others that I have identified as possible contenders.

The two “Alone IV” album tags are:

• "Alone IV\written by rc, tracks by rc\"
• "Alone IV\written by rc, tracks by rc with other musicians, mostly pat, scott, and danial brummel\"

Note: No specific cowrites with Scott (either Shriner or Murphy) or Daniel Brummel are currently known to have been considered for an Alone IV.

 

Demos with “Alone IV” Tags

The following demos have “Alone IV” album tags:

• "Chasm    2.mp3"
• "It Holds Me Together   2.mp3"
• "Superman      3.mp3"
• "why can't you be there     3.mp3"
• "Too Good For Me       3 point 2.mp3"
• "Baby Come Back 2003-05-21 (392).mp3"
• "The Best of Me          15   normal.mp3"
• "The Tower of Babel      7.mp3"
• "Gravity Will Bring You Down     13.mp3" [“aloneiv” is in the comment field instead of the album field]
• "El Presidente      6.mp3"
• "_I'll Be With Someone Else 3.mp3"
• "Hippies     8.mp3"

“It Holds Me Together,” “Superman,” and “Too Good for Me” appeared on the The 4 and 5 Star Demos of Rivers Cuomo list made by the artist himself, now archived on weezerpedia.com.

The demos here that originate from before the Weezer (Blue Album) are revisions done in Ableton presumably during the Everything Will Be Alright in the End period of 2011-2014. Several other revisions exist without an “Alone IV” tag and are discussed later in this article.

12 tracks is light for an Alone album. There are likely more demos with the “Alone IV” tag that are not released. This set of songs is heavy on the pre-Blue and EWBAITE periods. The only song not from one of these periods is “Baby Come Back” from the Make Believe period.

 

2008 Edits

Several songs from Alone II have 2008 edit demos, including “Cold and Damp,” “My Day Is Coming,” “I Was Scared,” and “My Brain Is Working Overtime,” as well as “The Prettiest Girl in the Whole Wide World” which had a 2008 edit listed as dummy data on riverscuomo.com. In addition, some other songs have 2008 edits. 

While these are not known in any way to have been considered for an Alone IV album, I do speculate that these were considered for Alone II. All we can do is guess, and I am guessing that Alone II outtakes would have possibly been considered for Alone IV as well. The issue with these 2008 edits is that we do not know which were simply edits done in 2008 and which, if any, were intended for an Alone.

The following are released 2008 edits of songs not on Alone II:

• "Bad Girl (2008 edit).mp3"
• "Softies (2008 edit).mp3"
• "Get Me Mine (2008 edit).mp3"
• "Run Over By A Truck (2008 edit).mp3"
• "Memories (2008 edit) 2.mp3"
• "Unspoken (2008 edit) 2.mp3"
• "tell me what i want (2008 edit).mp3"

Each one of these songs appeared on the The 4 and 5 Star Demos of Rivers Cuomo. “Bad Girl” and “Softies” were specifically known to have been considered for Alone II according to an early iteration of this list.

The Maladroit-era song “Everybody Let’s Rock” also has a 2008 edit. While demos for this song were released, this particular version remains unreleased and is only known about through the dummy data list. The song also appeared on the The 4 and 5 Star Demos of Rivers Cuomo.

“Thrown It All Away” was also known to have been considered for Alone II. No 2008 edit was released, either due to one not existing or due to it being a co-write and thus trickier to release. However, a file called “Thrown It All Away     2.m4a” was listed on riverscuomo.com as dummy data. We do not know the timeframe of this file, but the numbering scheme matches that of the 2011-2014 era as seen in other files from the period (before the “@” naming scheme that began in the White-era) and it is a .m4a file, a filetype that Cuomo is known to has used around the EWBAITE demo period (several such files were released before being replaced by MP3s). It is possible that this demo is a similar case to the pre-Blue demos tagged for Alone IV. 

Listen to "Cold and Damp," a favorite of mine from Alone II: 

EWBAITE-era Revisits with No “Alone IV” Tag

As previously stated, multiple pre-Blue demos received work in Ableton around the EWBAITE period of 2011-2014. Those with an “Alone IV” tag have already been mentioned, but it is also worth considering the other songs from this batch. It is unknown if the reason for these revisions was Alone IV consideration, but considering that several have the tag, it is certainly possible. The following three were released in the Pre-Weezer demo bundle.

• "Crazy Rock 'n Rollers    3.mp3"
• "I Can't Forget the Way       2.mp3"
• "Why Do We Hurt Each Other   2.mp3"

Other unheard demos with similar revision title schemes were listed on riverscuomo.com in 2020 (including the aforementioned “Thrown It All Away”):

• "Thrown It All Away 2.m4a"
• "The Bottle of Wine Song 2.m4a"

All these songs appeared on The 4 and 5 Star Demos of Rivers Cuomo.

 

Closing Notes

No actual album is known to have been assembled. It is highly unlikely that all of the songs discussed here would have made or were even considered for the Alone IV tracklist, but this can be viewed as a pool of potential contenders.

Nearly every song in this article also appeared on The 4 and 5 Star Demos of Rivers Cuomo. Of those that did not, only “Chasm,” “Why Can’t You Be There,” and “Baby Come Back” actually existed at the time that the list was made available.

Cuomo did eventually release an Alone IV, just not in the traditional sense. Multiple demo bundles released on his website have held the moniker at different times. Nonetheless, it is still fun to imagine what a more traditional release might have been like. While these groups of songs, even those with an “Alone IV” tag, are far from confirmed for a canceled release, they provide a nice selection for fan tracklists.

 

For further information on the riverscuomo.com demos, see www.weezerpedia.com.

Have any insights? Please leave a comment!